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Mochascafe
Regular Poster
Username: Mochascafe
Post Number: 99
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 12:12 am: | 
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Outstanding Literary Work Fiction
“Blood Colony: A Novel” – Tananarive Due (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Going Down South: A Novel” – Bonnie J. Glover (Random House/One World/Ballentine)
“In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel” – Blair
Underwood, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes (Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster)
“Just Too Good to Be True” – E. Lynn Harris (Doubleday)
“Song Yet Sung” – James McBride (Riverhead Books)
Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction
“Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom” – Cornel West (Smiley Books)
“Letter to My Daughter” – Maya Angelou (Random House)
“Moving to Higher Ground” – Wynton Marsalis, Geoffrey Ward (Random House)
“The Sea is So Wide And My Boat Is So Small” – Marian Wright Edelman (Hyperion)
“There’s No Traffic on the Extra Mile: Lessons on the Road From Dreams to Destiny” – Rickey Minor (Gotham Books)
Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author
“Barack, Race, and the Media: Drawing My Own Conclusion” – David Glenn Brown (David G. Brown Studios)
“The Beautiful Struggle” – Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel and Grau)
“Homeroom Heroes: Freshman Edition” – Michael B. Jordan, Rahfeal Gordan (RahGor Publishing)
“No Way Home” – Carlos Acosta (Scribner)
“War of the Blood In My Veins” – Dashaun “Jiwe” Morris (Scribner)
Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Auto-Biography
“21 Nights” – Prince (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin” – Herb Boyd (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“The Black List” – Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Elvis Mitchell (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“The Legs Are The Last To Go” – Diahann Carroll (Amistad)
“Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration” – Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, Richard A. Long (Doubleday)
Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional
“32 Ways To Be A Champion In Business” – Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Crown Business)
“The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life” – Kevin Powell (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Dining In” – G. Garvin (Meredith Books)
“Good is not Enough and Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals” – Keith R. Wyche (Portfolio/Centennial)
“Tapping the Power Within: A Path To Self-Empowerment For Women” – Iyanla Vanzant (Smiley Books)
Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry
“Hardheaded Weather” – Cornelius Eady (Marian Wood Books)
“Hip Hop Speaks To Children: A Celebration of “Poetry With A
Beat” – Nikki Giovanni (Source Books/Jabberwocky)
“Honoring the Ancestors” – James Cherry (Third World Press)
“Things I Must Have Known” – A B Spellman (Coffee House
Press)
“Warhorses” – Yusef Komunyakaa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Outstanding Literary Work – Children
“Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem” – Maya Angelou
(illustrators - Lou Fancher & Steven Johnson) (Schwartz &
Wade)
“Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope” – Nikki
Grimes, (illustrator - Bryan Collier) (Simon & Schuster)
“Say a Little Prayer” – Dionne Warwick, David Freeman
Wooley, Tonya Bolden, (illustrator – Soud) (Running Press)
“We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball” – Kadir
Nelson (Disney Publishing)
“You Can Do It!” – Tony Dungy, (illustrator - Amy June Bates)
(Simon & Schuster)
Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens
“Beacon Hills High” – Mo’Nique Imes Jackson, Sherri McGee McCovey (Amistad)
“Joseph” – Shelia P. Moses (Simon & Schuster)
“Letters To A Young Sister: Define Your Destiny” – Hill Harper (Gotham Books)
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s American Heroes: Robert Smalls, The Boat Thief” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., (illustrator Patrick Faricy) (Disney Hyperion)
“Sugar Plum Ballerinas: Plum Fantastic” – Whoopi Goldberg, Nancy Cato, (illustrator - Maryn Roos)(Disney Publishing) |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1643
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 09:40 am: |
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Hey Mochascafe thanks for sharing this list. I have no new thoughts on this list in advance of the annoucements of the winners.
But then again... I'm surprised Morrison's book A Mercy was not nominated. 21 (The Prince Book) is not a biography.
The books that win will be most telling. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13269
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 10:41 am: |
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The list reads like a Who's Who of black authors. Popularity seemed to be the criteria for making the cut and, of course, the prospect of celebrity writers being in attendance at an awards event always garners a lot of publicity. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1646
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 11:00 am: |
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Cynique, celebrity and awards go hand in hand in this country; so much so it is too obvious to bother mentioning. But this does make Morrison's absense even more curious.
I have noticed, in recent years, some attempt to include previously unhearlded, quality authors, like Bonnie J. Glover http://aalbc.com/authors/bonnie_glover.htm.
Maybe there should be categories for urban, christian/insirational and erotic categories. These types of books are far to popular not to be reflected... |
Mochascafe
Regular Poster
Username: Mochascafe
Post Number: 100
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 01:49 pm: |
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You know the way this goes is that NAACP members and delegates nominate each person in every category. This being said, a side committee (still not sure who they are, how many there are) decide on the Literature Categories....
I am hoping the absence of Toni just means that the nominations were completed prior to the November release of Toni's book and will therefore be added to next years list. I will find out and update you.
That being said, I think that the popularity contest happens because people tend to pick the people who they have heard of (whether the read the book or not). I will say that the organization has acknowledged that on a whole the literature categories (both selection and award ceremony, as they are never included in the live telecast) needs an overhaul. We are trying to find ways to rectify this with the Author Pavilion to at least give the nominees and winners additional exposure but it still remains a work in progress.
Personally I would have liked to see more authors from across the diaspora represented, but at the end of the day the Image Awards like most Hollywood Awards usually represent the most popular names in increase viewership and therefore sponsorship. What I am trying to say is that at the end of the day business is business and unfortunately you have to peak the interest of the general public. I am certainly not trying make excuses but this is the reality of Hollywood, but it is rather unfortunate for the talented yet less "glittery" author. |
Mochascafe
Veteran Poster
Username: Mochascafe
Post Number: 101
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 01:56 pm: |
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Troy, Christian/Inspirational perhaps.... Erotic, I doubt we'll see that genre represented in this venue anytime soon Not with the current NAACP demographic, they are not havin it.
As far as Christian and Inspirational, I think that those books are covered in Instructional. |
A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2485
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 03:22 pm: |
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Mocha,
What about Christian and Inspirational Fiction? |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1485
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 03:31 pm: |
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Hi, Mrs. Daffy Duck ...I mean A_womon. Opps, I'm sorry, wrong thread. |
Mochascafe
Veteran Poster
Username: Mochascafe
Post Number: 102
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 04:45 pm: |
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Thats a good suggestion A Womon, Ill pass it on.... Dont know how far it will go but I will pass it on. |
A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2486
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2009 - 04:46 pm: |
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Hi you scwewy wabbit! |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 419
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 09, 2009 - 07:40 pm: |
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“Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin” – Herb Boyd (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
Thanks for the posting the list. I've been reading Baldwin's fourth novel, "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone," and at the beginning of the book, the main character Leo, an actor, has a heart attack onstage, which triggers a long flashback to his youth in Harlem. It begins with this stunning little paragraph, a memory of when he was 10 years old:
When Caleb, my older brother, was taken from me and sent to prison, I watched, from the fire escape of our East Harlem tenement, the walls of an old and massive building, far, far away, and set on a hill, and with green vines running up and down the walls, and with windows flashing like signals in the sunlight, I watched that building, I say, with a child's helpless and stricken attention, waiting for my brother to come out of there. I did not know how to get to the building. If I had, I would have slept in the shadow of those walls, and I told no one of my vigil or of my certain knowledge that my brother was imprisoned in that place. I watched that building for many years. Sometimes, when the sunlight flashed on the windows, I was certain that my brother was signaling to me and I waved back. When we moved from that particular tenement (into another one) I screamed and cried because I was certain that now my brother would no longer be able to find me. Alas, he was not there; the building turned out to be City College; my brother was on a prison farm in the Deep South, working in the fields.
There are 24 commas in the first sentence! It's a quirk of his style that Henry Louis Gates points out in his profile of Baldwin in "Thirteen Ways..." I think it might also be an idiosyncrasy of Henry James, who was influential on Baldwin (although I can't claim to have read any Henry James). In any case, his novels are filled with stupendous pieces like this one.
I ordered "Baldwin's Harlem." I'm also curious to learn what the Publishers Weekly reviewer meant by this observation:
"Longtime Harlem resident Boyd, managing editor of Black World Today, is authoritative, but in his self-proclaimed role as Baldwin's defender, he gives short shrift to the writer's homosexuality and comes across as rationalizing the anti-Semitism Baldwin was repeatedly accused of in his lifetime." |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 678
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 10, 2009 - 11:54 am: |
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Maybe there should be categories for urban, christian/insirational and erotic categories. These types of books are far to popular not to be reflected...
Troy,
If you build it, they will come. Conferences and award ceremonies are guaranteed money makers. (Conferences for the opportunity to sell to multiple people and award shows to boost the ego.) I bet if you would put an awards show together for these genres, it would be successful. I can see it now; the AALBC Urban and Inspirational Book Awards. Hellraisers and Heaven-bound all under one roof. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7662
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 11:20 am: |
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My picks might be different but I'm just glad they have categories for literary work.
They dn't have to do it at all, you know. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 508
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 11:50 am: |
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I ordered "Baldwin's Harlem." I'm also curious to learn what the Publishers Weekly reviewer meant by this observation:
"Longtime Harlem resident Boyd, managing editor of Black World Today, is authoritative, but in his self-proclaimed role as Baldwin's defender, he gives short shrift to the writer's homosexuality and comes across as rationalizing the anti-Semitism Baldwin was repeatedly accused of in his lifetime."
I find that curious as well, Steve. I hadn't heard of such accusations.
Thanks for the heads up on this title. I believe the last biography of Baldwin I read was the one by Quincy Troupe.
All my romantic notions about Harlem as a teenager came from reading Baldwin. Even though he didn't paint Harlem in romantic terms, I loved his words and his stories so much, that by extension, I romanticized Harlem. I was cured of that when I stepped off a train at 125 Street Station in the fall of 1989 when I was 18. ;-) |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1499
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 12:48 pm: |
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Kitty,
So, by extension, you romanticized Harlem. Well, of course I can't use the word romanticized; that's a chick word , but I too looked forward to the day that I would step on Harlem's 125 St. Just like you, my vision came through reading. I looked at it like going to Disney Land. In fact, my first experience of Harlem was shared with my family. My daughter was considering going to Columbia (on 110th) so I thought it was a fine time to complete one of my dreams. Upon arrival, my wife and I quickly made our decision. My first child would be attending Columbia ...but not in this lifetime. Oh buddy, my daughter was giddy with the prospect of living in the Big Apple. All I could think of was the Manchild (my daughter) in the Promised Land. My son was terrified; too many black folk for him.
I too was cured. Although I still love Harlem, I was cured of any notion of sending my baby there ...alone. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 509
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:14 pm: |
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Carey, Manchild was a Harlem primer for me too, along with Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether. It's a YA novel, but still one of my favorites across genres of all time.
Then I went on to read several books about the Harlem Renaissance, and by writers from that era. A bit less naive by then, though. ;-)
Did you read Claude Brown's subsequent novel, The Children of Ham? |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1501
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:49 pm: |
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No, Kitty, I didn't read, The Children of Ham but I wasn't going to send my porkchop looking, cornfeed daughter to NY. Nope didn't read about the children of ham but I lived with a fat turkey that was just waiting to be plucked.
I did however read Chester Himes's Cotton Comes To Harlem and Run Man Run and I could just see my daughter, with her big sassy mouth, telling a drunk white policemen to blow it out of his ass.
It's interesting that you speak of the Harlem Renaissance period. When I think of that period I think of Langston Hughes. When Langston Hughes is mentioned I can assume many think of his poems, plays, or novels. I think of Mr. Simple. I call him Mr. Simple out of respect because although he was an uneducated man, his wisdom was deep. Simple cracked me up and made me think. |
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